Nothing More
by LoLoGreeneVines
Summary: In the immediate aftermath of the Deicide arc, Orihime Inoue can't sleep, and Uryu Ishida comes to a conclusion. Primarily emphasises the strength of their friendship, but there's a lot of one-sided shippiness.


She had stopped snoring since their time camping out together in the Soul Society.

No, that wasn't right, Uryu thought, digging his elbow into her squashy sofa and propping himself up, the better to hear any noises through her bedroom door from where he was. She had stopped _sleeping_.

His heart broke for her as he remembered what he had pieced together of her ordeal, from the scraps of information Ichigo had been able to pass on. According to him, the dead-eyed Espada had admitted to kidnapping her, and then it looked as though poor Orihime had been incarcerated until being freed to get a front-row seat to witness Ichigo's death and Uryu's impromptu wrist-ectomy.

 _Wrist-ectomy_. Good grief, Ryuken would be in hysterics if he could hear these thoughts. At least he had a valid excuse in that he was probably the most exhausted he would ever be in his life.

At any rate, it was certainly no wonder that Orihime was having trouble sleeping. Just the sight of her grief-stricken expression as he had attempted to bid her good evening at her door had been heart-wrenchingly moving; she had looked so anxious about the prospect of being left alone that she hadn't even had to say anything before he had given in and asked "would you like me to stay with you?", and she had stared at his shoes and given a tiny nod, a nod which made it clear that she felt guilty over having troubled him, although in truth the idea of being on his own himself had not been appealing in the first place.

And so Uryu had acknowledged the jumble of too-big men's clothing Orihime had heaped haphazardly on the coffee-table, selected the most appropriate garments to sleep in (a pair of light purple swimming trunks and a jumper with a snowman on the front; she had clearly not been thinking too hard when she selected the assortment), dumped his blood-sodden Quincy regalia in the bathtub to soak, and curled up on the sofa, his back turned in the direction of her bedroom door.

And then there was silence.

It was unnerving, really. In the Soul Society, if Orihime wasn't snoring, she was sleep-talking, and if she wasn't sleep-talking, she was at least breathing audibly. To hear _nothing_ from the other side of her thin, papery door was completely unsettling.

He didn't even question why he was thinking so hard about this. He loved her; this conclusion he had come to when Kisuke Urahara had brought the news of her kidnapping and his instinctive reaction was to insist on going to save her alone. As Kisuke had so slyly pointed out, this was a big change from his previous insistence upon Rukia's arrest that Ichigo would be the only one to stand a chance against the Soul Society, especially given that this time Uryu had only just received his Quincy powers back, he hadn't had a chance to test them out, and he was slumped over a platform, utterly worn out, when Kisuke had found him.

In fact, he loved her so much that he had actively attempted to give his own life for her.

As Uryu stared at the ceiling, contemplating the implications of this, a memory came unbidden into his mind. In it, his grandfather proffered the Sanrei glove, explaining its use, and then uttered a phrase which caused Uryu to stop breathing for a moment.

" _One day you will know what it is that you want to protect_."

 _Damn._

It made complete sense, when he thought about it. Even in the Soul Society, when he was singularly focussed on avenging his grandfather, he had somehow managed to ensure that Orihime was out of the way before he unleashed hell on the reprehensible scientist.

He had genuinely thought that he was going to die when he charged Ulquiorra, but to have not given it a second thought confirmed his theory. There was _nothing_ he wanted to protect more than her.

Uryu almost laughed. "I've worked it out, Sensei," he whispered to the ceiling. "Now what am I supposed to do with that?"

Silence.

Silence.

Unnatural silence.

"Orihime..." he muttered, rolling over and planting his feet on the hard wood floor, chilly with the first hints of winter in the draught breezing in through the edges of Orihime's rickety old windows. He shivered, noiselessly padding across the room until he was standing outside her bedroom door.

He knocked.

Still silence.

"Orihime," he called, softly, not for fear of waking her up but for fear that any sudden noise might startle her. "It's me. May I come in?"

No answer.

Just as he was about to give up and return to the sofa, he heard a small voice from the other side of the door.

"Yes."

He slowly turned the handle and stepped inside the darkened room, cautiously approaching her where she lay face-up on her bed, her gaze trained on the ceiling, and the characteristic wet streaks of tears trailing down her temples. She had been silently crying the entire time.

Uryu wished there was something he could do to reassure her, but he couldn't think of anything appropriate, so he stood awkwardly by the side of her bed instead. She tilted her head towards him, her face the picture of sadness, and she looked so desolate that he could have cried himself to see her like that. She didn't even giggle at his ridiculously mis-matched attire.

"Please stay with me," she whispered, and he found that without even thinking he was nodding and drawing up a chair, preparing to stand guard by her side until her breaths evened out and the comfortingly familiar sound of her snoring echoed through the room.

* * *

 **Author's notes: Plot-bunny alert. I haven't published much recently, but I had a random hour of productiveness, so have a one-shot. :) I am rather looking forward to the day when Kubo finally gets around to tying up this plot thread: Uryu has completely missed it once and come very close the second time, so third time lucky? :D**

 **Other important things: I'm contemplating changing my pen-name in a few months on the grounds that it's currently the same as my Tumblr URL and some of the people I know IRL are slowly discovering my Tumblr blog. I haven't yet decided what I might change it to (I have ideas, but nothing concrete) but I thought I'd give lots of advance warning on the grounds that quite a few people follow me and I don't want anybody to get confused when I eventually do get around to changing it. LoLoGreeneVines has served me well for over three years now, but it originally started life as a stupid in-joke based on a typographical error (and then a vague StarKid reference) and when I chose it I didn't realise that I was going to churn out more words than there are in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix within those three years. If I don't change my mind and stick with LLGV, (because I have an habit of never getting anything done,) I'll work out what I want to change it to soon and let you know in my author's notes of some fic or other. LLGV is the sort of username that people I know IRL see and think "yep, that's Lowri" and I want something similar in that regard, because that's just my style, but more subtle and clever so they _won't_ pick up on it. Also, it's going to reflect some fandoms. I don't know, I'll come up with something. :) Thank you for reading, totally awesome people. :D**


End file.
